


As a Police Officer, As a Phantom Thief

by Jen425



Category: Super Sentai Series, Tokusatsu, 快盗戦隊ルパンレンジャー VS 警察戦隊パトレンジャー | Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patoranger
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst, God this hurt to write, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Secret Identities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21563068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jen425/pseuds/Jen425
Summary: “You won’t make that shot,” Kairi says.The conversation always begins like this.
Relationships: Asaka Keiichirou & Yano Kairi, Asaka Keiichirou/Yano Kairi
Comments: 11
Kudos: 26
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	As a Police Officer, As a Phantom Thief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oneatatime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneatatime/gifts).



> So this is sad, because of course it is, but I really enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Imagining the circumstances that reverse the roles of the Lupins and the Patos is just… beyond entertaining, so there’s some world building, but it’s mostly just two idiots who love each other, hate themselves, and don’t know how to say any of the above

“You won’t make that shot,” Kairi says.

The conversation always begins like this.

Keiichiro turns around, slowly. He supposes that it was a dumb idea coming here, just to see if maybe Kairi would have, too. The young police officer had a terrifyingly calculated ruthlessness to his actions which always seemed to conflict with his outwardly light nature.

Nonetheless, he wants to know… what Kairi thinks of him, now that he knows the truth. Because ruthless and cunning and skilled as Kairi was, he still fought very clearly for  _ good. _

(Keiichiro can’t help thinking of Kairi’s own protests to the contrary. But which of them had taken pain and sought out the easy way and which had sought out the legal one?

_ “I joined the GSPO to get revenge,” _ Kairi had admitted, to Lupin Red. But when had he ever been anything but a good cop?  _ “The only reason I’m here is because Umika and I managed to take down that Gangler while we were still cadets.” _ )

“Am I under arrest?” Keiichiro asks. He knows he’s not.

Kairi cocks his head, arms crossed.

“I could,” he says. “I should handcuff you right here… but is it worth the irony?”

Keiichiro almost smiles, at that, thinking about meeting Noel here. He’d been so goddamn  _ frustrated  _ at the man for so long, but he hadn’t hesitated to sacrifice his identity for the alien Silver-Gold.

He doesn’t, though, with the edge in Kairi’s voice.

Kairi doesn’t  _ get _ angry like this, or at least he doesn’t show it. But there’s something dangerous at his edges, right now.

This was a dumb idea to begin with.

“Why are you here?” Kairi continues.

“Why are you?” Keiichiro replies.

Neither say anything for a long moment, for fear of the answer. And yet Keiichiro knows Kairi enough to feel the matched answer, regardless.

_ I was looking for you. _

They’d both always held secrets, but they’d always  _ known _ each other.

_ (“You don’t know me, thief,”  _ Kairi had scoffed. “ _ No one has since I was… sixteen, I think.” _

_ “Then what makes you think you know me?”  _ Keiichiro had responded, voice edging on a growl. Kairi had smirked. Nothing like the preciously rare and softer real one which he occasionally gave Asaka Keiichiro.

_ “I don’t,”  _ he’d replied.  _ That’s the problem.” _

But so much has happened between that early temporary allyship and now.)

“This crossroad is on the way back to Headquarters,” Kairi says, at last. “I have a reason, and I asked first… so why are  _ you _ out where someone might recognize you,  _ thief _ ?”

Keiichiro definitely doesn’t flinch. There’s more anger in that word than there has been in some time. And it feels wrong, without a mask to hide Lupin Red from Kairi with.

(There was a time he’d wanted to be a police officer, but that was before…

Well, it was Before, and not the second one.)

“You have questions,” he says instead. It’s not a question. Kairi crosses his arms and finally actively glares.

“I do,” he says. “But I discovered your identities a month ago… in a way, though, it was obvious.”

Keiichiro blinks.

“Obviously?”

Kairi looks up, eyes far away.

“Lupin Red was older than me, but he was such a hothead,” he says. “I couldn’t trust him not just because he was a criminal, but because he was volatile, could easily become a bigger danger…”

Keiichiro thinks about everything that’s lead to this point, from taking the Red Dial Fighter to the appearance of the Patrangers in-costume to taking the shot where no one else would to… to taking off his mask on live broadcast.

So many spots along the way where he could have teetered off the edge between a bad person and a monster.

“But then there were other times,” Kairi continues, and that’s almost a smile. “Where he’d trust me, and I could feel like I should trust him, too. It never made any sense, but if, all that time, he was really the best man I knew… then it makes sense.”

…The best man he knew?

(He remembers in the early days, back before Keiichiro really knew Kairi as either Lupin Red or Keiichiro. Before Kairi knew either, as well.

And yet…

_ “He was the best person I knew, and I hated him for it,” _ Kairi had said.  _ “I tried so hard and for so long to be like him before I realized it was just… impossible.” _

_ “Impossible?” _

Kairi had laughed.

_ “Sometimes, Kei-Chan,”  _ he’d said _. “All we can be is who life made us.” _

He’d sounded so wise, yet been so young, and Keiichiro had wondered what made the police officer so seemingly put together. And how he didn’t see how frustratingly good he  _ was? _

So much of what Keiichiro wished he could be, in another life.

When and how had he, a thief, become higher in Kairi’s esteem than his dead older brother?)

…And then suddenly Kairi is aiming a punch at his face, and Keiichiro could duck, but isn’t he here for this? For whatever his fellow Red feels, with the truth out in the open.

“But what I really want to know,” Kairi growls as Keiichiro stumbles back, grabbing his shirt collar to steady him while getting up close. “Is how Keiichiro, who can’t lie worth a shit, managed to smile at me for a year like you cared.”

…What? That’s…

(“ _ Don’t be stupid,” _ Keiichiro had said.  _ “The police are the enemy, nothing more.” _

_ “They were useful today though, weren’t they?”  _ Noel had asked, with that  _ damn _ smile on his face.

It was all Keiichiro could do to look away, but that had helped none, as he’d ended up looking right at Kairi, who had been smiling something real, for once.

And he couldn’t help smiling back.)

That’s… not true.

“I’m sorry,” Keiichiro says. “I’ve never seen you this angry, not even at Lupin Red.”

Kairi just scoffs, pulling back.

“Oh  _ hell  _ yeah,” he says. “I’m angry. I’m angry at you, for lying to me. I’m angry at the Ganglers for confirming my suspicions before I could talk to you, but, most of all? I’m angry at myself, for not knowing why or how the best man I know became a fucking  _ Phantom Thief! _ ”

Kairi’s panting, and Keiichiro is… frozen.

“Kairi…”

The anger seems to drain from the young police officer, and he suddenly looks far older than he is. It’s not an unfamiliar expression, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting.

“Ah, who am I kidding?” Kairi snarks. “I’m not really angry at you, just… tell me why. Why you became a Thief. And why… why you made friends with me anyways.”

Keiichiro sighs.

“It hasn’t been about using you,” he admits. “Not entirely. And… sometimes, when the system fails you… you have to take things into your own hands.”

(He remembers a hand on his arm, his gun and his Dial Fighter offered to his hands.

The cadet who had finally returned to the Academy after what happened just a little more jaded… hadn’t hesitated…

_ Keiichiro _ hadn’t hesitated.)

And he walks away without another word.

(He doesn’t see the painful understanding on Kairi’s face. It wouldn’t have made a difference, anyways.)

**Author's Note:**

> …Keiichiro is really fun to write.
> 
> Also I have literally every LuPato’s altered story laid out in my head, if anyone wants to hear about that time unwittingly teaching his future rival to cook kept Tooma from getting himself killed after losing his fiancé to the Ganglers or how Umika and Kairi joined forces as cadets to take out a Gangler who’d killed his brother and was killing Umika’s gf. Those are only a few of the story bits I have.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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